//------------------------------//
// Under the Shade of the Trees (New) 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


Under the Shade of the Trees


Jaune sat under one of the trees that grew just beyond the main courtyard, down the path that led towards the docking pads, and strummed lightly upon his guitar. The trees were broad-leaved, and at this time, with summer approaching and the days getting longer, they were engulfed with green which offered shade from the sun. And so he sat, his back resting upon the uneven bark of the tree trunk, and rested his guitar upon his knees as he plucked lightly at the strings. 
A slight frown creased his brow. He didn’t really hear the sounds that he was producing with the instrument; his fingers were moving on instinct. He wasn’t playing anything; he was just making noise. 
Making noise while his thoughts whirled. 
“Jaune?”
Jaune’s fingers stopped moving, the soft strumming sounds of his guitar quietening as he looked up to see that Pyrrha had stolen up on him without him knowing… or perhaps he had simply been so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard her approach, though she moved with all the volume of an Atlesian regiment on the march. Either way, she stood over him now, her shadow joining the shadows of the leaves in falling upon him. She stood just beyond the shade of the tree, so that the sunlight gleamed upon her gilded armour, while her red sash and ponytail almost as red both waved slightly in the gentle breeze. 
“Pyrrha,” Jaune murmured. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Pyrrha replied, a slight and slightly concerned smile upon her face. “May I join you?”
“Sure,” Jaune said. “Of course.”
“You don’t have to say that,” Pyrrha assured him “If you’d rather be alone, then I can go-”
“It’s fine,” Jaune replied. “I’d love to have you here.”
“Thank you,” Pyrrha said, her voice barely audible as she sat down beside him, tucking her sash beneath her as a kind of blanket for her skirt. The distance between them was small, but at the same time, it seemed to be much greater. What he had done, the fact that Pyrrha couldn’t help him with it, it was like it had put up a pane of glass between the two of them, so that they could hear one another, see each other, but not touch each other in any way. 
And not speak to one another either, judging by the silence that stretched out between the two of them. 
“You play very well,” Pyrrha said, after a short time had passed without anything passing between them.
Jaune looked away from her. “I wasn’t really playing,” he said.
“I know,” Pyrrha murmured. “But on the train… you play very well.”
“Thanks.”
“When did you learn how to play? Back home?”
Jaune nodded. “My sister Kendal taught me.” Thinking about Kendal made him feel guilty, although not as guilty as thinking about some of his other sisters would have done; Kendal hadn’t been home when he left, so it didn’t feel as though he’d snuck out on her the way that he’d snuck out on the rest of the family; the difference might be kind of thin, but it mattered to him, if only because it lessened the weight just a little tiny bit. “We didn’t have a TV at home, so we had to make our own entertainment.”
“Really?” Pyrrha asked, surprise evident in her voice.
“Really,” Jaune replied. “How do you think I manage to make it so far without knowing about aura, or the Vytal Festival, or… anything?”
“I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it,” Pyrrha said softly. “May I ask why?”
“I don’t know if I could say; we just didn’t, and I don’t know anyone who did,” Jaune explained. “The bookstore was the only real contact we had with the wider world; well, that and the rail line and that was mainly for loading produce on to sell to Vale. I guess I really was a hayseed with no clue what the rest of the world was like.”
Pyrrha didn’t reply to that. He didn’t blame her. He wasn’t sure what she could have said. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it like that. What did he want her to say? Did he want her to say anything? Why had he said that he’d like her to sit with him if he was just going to leave her speechless?
He wanted her here; he didn’t want Pyrrha to go. But he didn’t know what he ought to say to her. He didn’t know how to break the glass between them. 
Pyrrha reached out for him, but stopped short of laying a hand upon his shoulder. Rather, she drew back her hand again and, with both hands, gripped the scarlet sash around her waist. She looked down at her hands, and then away towards the docking pad. “How… how are you?”
“I’m okay,” Jaune said reflexively, drawing a look from Pyrrha. “Okay, that’s not really accurate,” he conceded. “But I… I went to see Professor Goodwitch yesterday.”
“Oh,” Pyrrha said, her voice so soft, he couldn’t really tell what she thought about it. “I… I’m glad,” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Rainbow Dash convinced me that I couldn’t be… macho about it,” Jaune said. “That I needed to do what was best for me, instead of worrying about how it looked.”
“I see,” Pyrrha sighed. “Rainbow Dash.” She fell silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, Jaune.”
Jaune blinked in surprise. “You’re sorry? For what?”
“I don’t know!” Pyrrha confessed, her voice rising. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or what I’m doing wrong. I just know that I’m your girlfriend, and I love you, but I can’t help you! Sunset can see what it is you need, Blake can reach you after what happened to you, Rainbow Dash can make you see that you need help, but I can’t help you at all, and I don’t know why except that I… I must be a terrible girlfriend, a terrible friend. I’m sorry.”
Jaune stared at her, his blue eyes wide. “Pyrrha… that’s not your fault.”
“It certainly isn’t your fault!” Pyrrha declared. “You’ve been in such pain, and I haven’t been able to do a thing about it!”
“I know,” Jaune said, using a gentle tone to try and assuage some of the bluntness of his words. “But that still doesn’t make it your fault. You’re a great friend, and there’s nobody that I’d rather try the boyfriend-girlfriend thing with than you, even if we haven’t really gotten the chance to try it yet. And I think… I think that might be why you can’t help me with this.”
Pyrrha looked up at him, confusion in her beautiful emerald eyes. “I… don’t understand.”
“Blake and I aren’t friends, not really,” Jaune explained. “We hang around sometimes, but I don’t really know her, and she doesn’t know me either. The same goes for Rainbow Dash; I know her, and she’s okay, but we’re not close. And so they can talk to me the way that you can’t, or even Ruby. Rainbow can talk to me in ways that she could never talk to Twilight because she’s too close to her, the way that you and I are. If you want to know why you couldn’t reach me but they could, I think that’s the best answer as to why: because they don’t know me like you do. Because… because they don’t care about my feelings the way you do.”
Pyrrha was quiet for a moment. “Are you… are you saying that I’m… too nice to you?”
“I’m saying… I’m saying that you always want to take care of me,” Jaune said. “But sometimes, you can’t help someone by taking care of them, if that makes any sense.”
“I’ve tried not to smother you,” Pyrrha protested. “To let you fight your own battles, when I thought that you could… that doesn’t sound very good, does it?”
“I know what you mean,” Jaune assured her.
“You can’t expect me to simply stand by when I think – when I know – that it’s a fight you can’t win,” Pyrrha told him. “You can’t expect me not to go to your aid. You can’t expect me to watch you die or be hurt in the name of letting you try your strength.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Then, please… I’m afraid you’ll have to explain to me what you are saying, because I don’t understand,” Pyrrha implored. “I care about you; is that a bad thing?”
“Of course not,” Jaune said. “I care about you too, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Then what are you saying?” Pyrrha asked.
Jaune stared into her vivid green eyes. “I’m saying… I’m saying that you don’t have to feel as though you can help me with all of my problems,” he told her. “Sometimes, other people can help me more than you can, and it doesn’t make you a bad girlfriend… any more than it makes me a bad boyfriend that Sunset can help you with your problems more than I can. At least, I hope it doesn’t.”
Pyrrha’s brow furrowed beneath her circlet. “You think Sunset helps me with my problems more than you do?”
“I mean, she seems to get your mother more than I do.”
“That’s true,” Pyrrha muttered. “But that means that she takes my mother’s side more than I perhaps might like. Sunset… Sunset gets my mother, but you get me.”
The corner of Jaune’s lip twitched upwards. “I try my best.”
“Your best is very good,” Pyrrha told him. She smiled, but only briefly before it faded from her face. “I’m still sorry that I haven’t been able to help you when you needed help.”
“It hasn’t happened to you,”
“Yet,” Pyrrha said, softly and with a hint of melancholy in her voice. 
Jaune was silent for a moment. “You think it will.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Pyrrha admitted. “But now… it happened to you; what are the odds that it won’t happen to the rest of us? It seems that fighting enemies besides the grimm lies in our future.”
“I hope it doesn’t,” Jaune said. “Happen to you, I mean. Or Ruby. God, I hope it doesn’t happen to Ruby.”
“A part of me… I think that Ruby might bear it the best of all of us,” Pyrrha said. “She has… beneath her sweetness and her kind heart, there is a core of steel within her soul; I can practically feel it through my semblance. She is committed to the ideals of a true huntress, and woe betide any villain who would stand against them.”
“I know,” Jaune said, sighing. “I… I feel the same way. But that still doesn’t mean that I have to want it to happen to her.”
“Nor I,” Pyrrha agreed. “And yet… it seems more inevitable now than it did before we set out on our most recent mission.” She fell silent for a moment or two. “Are you going to see Professor Goodwitch again?”
“Yeah,” Jaune replied at once. “One session… she told me that we were only just getting started. I’m going to see her tomorrow, and then… however often she thinks I need.”
“I see,” Pyrrha said. “I’m glad.” She pursed her lips together. “I know that I don’t understand what you’re going through, and I know that I perhaps can’t say things to you that someone more detached might be able to, but… please don’t forget that you can tell me anything you wish.”
“I won’t,” Jaune promised. He leaned down and kissed her gently on the forehead, making her giggle just a little. “I’m-”
“Don’t,” Pyrrha said quickly, cutting him off before he could finish. “You don’t need to apologise, not for what you’re going through.”
“Maybe not,” Jaune admitted. He plucked idly at a string on his guitar. “No,” he said, more firmly this time, as he plucked a couple more strings. “But that doesn’t mean that I have to let it own me, let it be the be all and end all of me. If I’m going to stay here, then… then I have to live with it, and not just by going to see Professor Goodwitch but by living.” He stood up, stepping out into the light of the sun as he turned to face Pyrrha, holding out his hand to her. “Come with me,” he said.
“Jaune?”
“I mean, we talked about going on a date when we got back from the mission, right?”
“Yes, but-”
“So, let’s go!” Jaune cried. “I mean… if you still want to.”
Pyrrha’s eyes – her whole face – was illuminated by her radiant smile as she extended one gloved hand to him, placing her fingers into the palm of his hand and letting his grip enfold them as she got to her feet. “I would love to,” she declared. 
Jaune let out a sigh of relief. “Then that… that’s partly settled, because I have no idea where we’re actually going.”
Pyrrha covered her mouth up with her free hand as she giggled. “I’m sure we’ll manage to think of something once we get to Vale… I hope we will, anyway, and if we don’t, then perhaps we can have a… a sightseeing date?”
“You mean where we wander round all the streets waiting to make up our minds but never actually do?” Jaune asked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I meant,” Pyrrha admitted, another titter of laughter escaping her lips. “I mean, we are going to Vale, aren’t we?”
“Well, a part of me thought about a beach in Vacuo for our first date, but Vale is probably a safer choice,” Jaune said, and was glad to see that the abysmal joke had landed. He started to head towards the docking pads before he remembered that he was still holding his guitar in his other hand. “I should probably put this back in our room first.”
“You could take it with you,” Pyrrha suggested.
“I think that might disqualify us from going into a lot of places,” Jaune replied. “Unless you want our first date to be you watching me try and busk on some street corner.”
The smile on Pyrrha’s face suggested that she found the idea at least somewhat intriguing. “You do play very well.”
“Thanks, but I don’t know how romantic singing for spare lien is,” Jaune said. He paused for a moment. “Unless this is a very subtle way of saying that you need the money, in which case, I can probably come up with a better idea than-”
“No, I don’t need the money,” Pyrrha said, as together – hand in hand – they began to walk back down the path towards the courtyard and the school beyond. “Although… it sometimes occurs to me that perhaps I should.”
Jaune frowned at that. “You think that you should need money? As in… you should have more expensive tastes?”
“My tastes are probably expensive enough,” Pyrrha said with a shake of her head. “If you look at the shampoo I use compared to Sunset’s… I confess that I’ve become used to having access to the very best.”
“It makes sense,” Jaune said. “Sunset’s not using cheap shampoo because she’s humble; if she could afford the luxury brands, I bet she’d buy them.”
“I’m sure,” Pyrrha said softly. “It’s just that, well… how can I… I stormed out of the house because I wasn’t prepared to tolerate my mother’s… influence, so isn’t it hypocrisy to keep on spending her money?”
Jaune was quiet for a moment. “Isn’t it your family money?”
“And my mother is the head of the family, so that strikes me as a rather fine distinction.”
“What I mean is, your mother didn’t earn that money,” Jaune said. “She got it from… where does the money come from?”
“Our income comes from land, chiefly,” Pyrrha said. “Though there are also stocks and shares and an interest in some mines – metal, not dust – in the east of Anima.”
“So she just sat behind a desk and let the money roll in.”
“My mother does manage the portfolio.”
“Okay, but it’s still your family’s land,” Jaune said. “You’re not taking from your mother; you're spending money that is as much yours as it is hers. And what about your tournaments, did you make any money from winning?”
“There were cash prizes,” Pyrrha said. “As well as sponsorships and the like.”
“And where did that money go?”
“Into… into the family accounts,” Pyrrha replied.
“You see? It’s your money you're spending, and you’re not taking it from anyone else,” Jaune declared. “And besides, what good would it do if you did just decide to stop spending the money? Suppose that Miló needed to have some work done and you couldn’t afford it any more? Suppose that it broke? You could get… you could get into serious trouble in the field, and in spite of everything that’s going on between you and your mom, I can’t believe she’d want that. I don’t want that, not so you can prove a point.” It wasn’t even as if she could get a job to make ends meet, because Beacon forbade its students to work part-time – or any time – jobs when school was in session. It was in the rules right above ‘don’t fake your transcripts.’
“You sound like Sunset,” Pyrrha said. “She wants me to keep taking the money, too.”
“Sunset is pretty smart.”
“But sometimes rather self-interested.”
“If caring about you is self-interested, then call me selfish,” Jaune said. “Your mother hasn’t tried to cut you off, has she?”
“No.”
“And she could if she wanted to, couldn’t she?”
“Yes, but-”
“Then she doesn’t care, so why should you?”
“Because I… I’d like her to understand that I’m serious about this,” Pyrrha explained. “That I’m serious about you.”
Jaune squeezed her hand reassuringly. “It doesn’t matter if she understands that yet; we’ll make her understand, together. We’ll make her see that we’re…”
Pyrrha waited for him to finish, only beginning to look a little puzzled when he did not. “Jaune? Is everything alright?”
“Did… did you say that you love me? Back there, under the tree.”
Pyrrha stared at him, and as she stared, her face began to grow red. “I… I, um, I, uh… that is to say, I… it’s a bit too soon to say things like that, isn’t it?”
Jaune hesitated. “Maybe a little bit.”
“I’m sorry!” Pyrrha cried, cringing apologetically, turning her face away from him. “I don’t suppose there’s any way that you could forget about that.”
“I’m not sure,” Jaune admitted, “but I could pretend that I have, if that would make you feel better.”
“I’m not certain it would, if only because I wouldn’t believe you,” Pyrrha lamented in a panic. “But… it would be very kind if you could try.”
“Then… what were we talking about just now?” Jaune asked.
Pyrrha’s face remained as red as the sash around her waist, but she was able to muster the traces of a smile. “Thank you,” she breathed, albeit she sounded a little wistful as she said it. Was that the right word? Like, sad, but not sad, exactly, not melancholy, but… 'wistful' had to be the right word, if only because he didn’t know another word to describe it.
Was it because he hadn’t said that he loved her? But, well, they hadn’t even gone out on a date yet; how was he supposed to know that he loved her? How did she know that she loved him? Did she love him, or had she simply misspoken? 
How can she possibly be in love with me? I mean, I’m not in love with her. She’s beautiful, she’s kind, she’s the person I trust most in all of Remnant, but I’m not…
Or am I?
He tried to imagine himself here with Weiss, about to go on a date once he’d put his guitar away, and… he couldn’t. It would have been his fondest dream when he first came to Beacon, but now, he just couldn’t conceive of it. Pyrrha was the only person he could imagine standing here with. 
So… does that mean…?
Why does this have to be so complicated?
“So,” Pyrrha said, sounding a little desperate to change the subject. “Have you had any ideas on where we could go for, uh, for our date?”
“Still not a clue.”
They still had not a clue by the time the Skybus dropped them off at the skydock, and they stayed clueless through the streets of Vale. Pyrrha didn’t seem to find his lack of ideas to be at all off-putting, and Jaune found that, as they wandered, he became less and less inclined to beat himself up over it. There was something to be said for just walking through the midst of Vale with Pyrrha by his side, hand in hand with the sweetest girl that he had ever met. There was something to be said for the fact that Pyrrha just wanted to be by his side, and he… he just wanted to be by her side too. They didn’t need a grand date, at least not right now; at some point, Jaune knew that he would have to come up with something impressive and romantic and worthy of Pyrrha, but right now… right now, they had one another, and that was enough. 
For now. 
Eventually, though, wandering around became just a little tiring, and Jaune began to look around for somewhere they could sit and talk some more and hopefully get something nice to eat as well. His gaze fell upon an offbeat ice-cream cafe in the middle of the street down which they walked, with a sign shaped like a cow with the letters A & P upon it. Another sign, shaped like a hand with one finger pointing downwards, gestured towards the door. 
“Would you like some ice cream?” Jaune asked, looking towards Pyrrha.
Pyrrha smiled, making her eyes and indeed her entire face light up in the process. “That sounds lovely,” she said. 
A homeless man, a threadbare blanket draped over his legs and a little mongrel dog lying by his side, sat not far from the cafe window. “Spare some change, please gents?” he called. “Spare any change so I can get a bed for the night?”
“Here,” Jaune said, stopping for a moment and fishing in his pocket; he pulled out a small-value lien card and dropped it into the man’s outstretched, worn, and weathered hands. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, sir, and god bless. Have a nice day.”
They walked past the man and pushed open the door, half glass and half blue-painted wood, to step into the cafe. Cows dominated the far wall, which was painted with a mural of flying cows or cows lying on their backs on clouds, all of which Jaune had to admit he found a little bit weird, but then, this place seemed a little bit obsessed with the source of its product: the boards with the prices of the various offerings written in chalk upon them were also shaped like cows, and the cardboard cartons for the ice cream were white with black stripes, with a cow face on them. Only the wall on their left as they came in – opposite the counter on the right – was not bovine-themed at all, boasting rather a silhouette of Vale’s skyscape painted against a soft, late-afternoon sunglow. 
A set of stairs led down into a basement, where there must have been more tables and chairs, because up here, it was a rather narrow space, with only a single row of tables along the wall on the left and one table at each window. The right-hand side of the store – Jaune and Pyrrha’s right as they came in – was wholly taken up with the counter, with ice cream in a score or more of different varieties sitting in a refrigerator under glass, along with pies and cakes on display. Tea, coffee, and ice cream machines sat on a wooden top against the wall, joined by glass jars filled with various treats and confections. 
And behind the counter worked a startlingly familiar face. 
“Miranda?!” Jaune asked.
She looked up, and Jaune had no doubt at all that this was indeed Miranda Wells, from back home in Alba   Longa. She was not tall, although she wasn’t quite as short as Ruby or Nora either, being about as tall as Penny or Blake; she was slender, with lithe arms and small, pale hands that she had managed to keep small and pale and smooth all through growing up in a farming town. Her hair was brown and pinned up at the back of her head out of the way, while her eyes were a watery blue and currently very wide. 
“Jaune?!” she gasped. “Jaune Arc?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jaune said. Meeting someone from home – someone from home working behind the counter of an ice cream cafe, no less – it was… it was not what he had expected when he came out into Vale today. He hadn’t expected it… ever, to be honest, although now that he thought about it, if he was going to run into anyone from Alba   Longa in Vale, it would be Miranda Wells, the person who had wanted to get away as much as he did. Still, he hadn’t thought that she… that was to say, he hadn’t expected to run into her, and now that he had… he wasn’t quite sure that he wanted to. They’d been friends when they were younger, but as they got older, well…
“I don’t want anything to do with you, Jaune Arc, and no one ever will!”
“What,” he said, hoping that Pyrrha didn’t notice the tremble in his voice, “what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” Miranda repeated. “What are you doing here?”
“I,” Jaune said, “am a Beacon. I mean I’m at Beacon!” he corrected himself. “I’m a Beacon student. I’m a huntsman in training.”
Miranda’s eyes grew even wider. “A Beacon… you did it? You really left? You actually left and went to Beacon just like you said you would?” Her mouth formed an O of surprise. “I never thought you’d actually-”
“Jaune,” Pyrrha said, and whether she had intended to interrupt Miranda before she could finish the sentence ‘I never thought you’d actually do it,’ he found himself grateful for the fact that she had interrupted, “aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Right, sorry,” Jaune said. “Pyrrha, this is Miranda Wells from back home; Miranda, this is Pyrrha Nikos, my… my girlfriend.” That word came out very badly – he put all the emphasis in all the wrong places so that the word rolled like waves off of his tongue – but all the same, it felt very, very good to say it. 
If Miranda’s eyes had gotten any wider, then she would have had to fish amongst the ice cream for them as she took in Pyrrha in all her statuesque loveliness. “Wow,” she repeated. “I mean… wow. Wow! The fact that you even have a girlfriend, but wow! How did you get so lucky?”
“Personally,” Pyrrha said, her tone touched by a sudden frost as she wrapped both hands around Jaune’s arm, “I think I’m the lucky one.”
Miranda stared at them both, falling silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was noticeably quieter. “I just came across as a complete bitch, didn’t I?”
“Somewhat obnoxious, yes,” Pyrrha agreed quietly. 
“Sorry,” Miranda said. “I really am sorry. I just… ever since we were kids and we used to hang out in the bookstore together, Jaune would always talk about how he was going to get out of that little village and go to Beacon and become a hero, and I just… I guess I never thought you really would. I didn’t think you had it in you to defy your parents and your sisters like that. But clearly, I shouldn’t have doubted you, because you did just that. Congratulations! Congratulations, and I’m sorry for what I said. For all of the things that I said.” Her eyes narrowed. “Now, did you really not know that I was here, or did you deliberately come so you could rub your super hot girlfriend in my face?”
“I had no idea you were here,” Jaune assured her. “And I would never do that to you,” he assured Pyrrha.
Pyrrha chuckled. “Jaune, I know that; you don’t need to say it.”
“But what about you?” Jaune asked Miranda. “What are you doing here? I mean, you’re working here, but-”
“I work here to help with my expenses, since I’m not getting any money from home,” Miranda replied. “I’m studying Literature at King’s College.”
“Good for you!” Jaune said. “You always loved books.”
“And you always wanted to be a hero,” Miranda said. “It seems like both our dreams are coming true.”
“Well… maybe,” Jaune murmured.
Miranda frowned but didn’t press the subject; instead, she turned to Pyrrha. “So, Pyrrha, are you a Beacon student too? I mean, the outfit says yes, but I feel as though I’ve made enough assumptions today.”
“I am, yes,” Pyrrha said. “Jaune and I are partners in battle as well as… well, you know.”
Miranda chuckled. “Right,” she said. “You know, I feel as though I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
Pumpkin Pete’s, Jaune thought but didn’t say because he didn’t want to embarrass Pyrrha by bringing it up.
Even without him saying anything, Pyrrha’s cheeks began to redden a little. “I, uh, perhaps I just have one of those faces?”
“No,” Miranda said. “No, you really don’t, trust me. I know, it’ll come to me. But in the meantime, I know that we’re not busy right now, and I would love to stay and chat, but there’s always the off-chance my boss might stop by to see how things are, not to mention, I guess, you came in here because you were hungry, so you should probably order something.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Jaune agreed. “What’s good here?”
“Everything is good here, Jaune; this is where I work,” Miranda informed him with a smirk. “But, if you want to know what I think is really good, I recommend the milkshakes.”
“Hmm, I think I’d rather have something hot,” Jaune said.
“Two hot chocolates with all the trimmings?” Miranda suggested.
Jaune glanced at Pyrrha. Her lips twitched into a smile. “I can indulge myself just once,” she said.
“You won’t regret it,” Miranda assured them. “And to eat, why don’t you try the sundaes?”
“Are you recommending the most expensive items on the menu?” Pyrrha suggested.
“Jaune doesn’t want to be a cheap date, do you Jaune?” Miranda asked.
Pyrrha smiled. “I’ll take a slice of the apple pie, with one scoop of strawberry ice cream and one of vanilla.”
“I’ll take the same, but make my ice cream chocolate,” Jaune said.
“Coming right up,” Miranda said as she took their lien before turning away and busying herself with their orders. 
All the trimmings on the hot chocolates turned out to be a scoop of vanilla ice cream floating in the cup, slowly melting alongside the marshmallows and the chocolate bomb that Miranda had already put in there, all of it covered under a layer of whipped cream. No wonder Pyrrha had referred to this as a one-off treat; it was the kind of thing that would probably ruin her tournament chances if she had it too often, but at the same time,  it really did look delicious. So did the pie, for that matter, and the slices of ice cream that sat beside it. 
Jaune carried the tray over to the table beside the window; perhaps there were some other patrons down in the basement, but they had the pick of the upstairs all to themselves. 
Pyrrha had a slight smile playing across her face as they sat down. “So,” she said, “that’s the girl you almost married.”
Jaune laughed nervously. “That’s the girl my parents wanted me to marry,” he corrected her. “I never… she never… we never wanted anything like that.” He took a sip from his hot chocolate, or tried to; mostly, he succeeded in getting whipped cream all around his mouth. “We both had other dreams.”
Pyrrha nodded. “I hope I didn’t come across as too forward; it’s just that when she started talking about you like that… I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.”
“It’s fine,” Jaune assured her.
“No, it’s not,” Pyrrha replied. “You… deserve better.”
“She was just surprised to see me, that’s all,” Jaune said. “When we were kids, we were close. Closer than anyone else I knew back home. Like she told you, we used to hang out in the bookstore together; everyone else thought we were kind of weird for spending so much time there, but for us, it was a place where we could escape, where we could spend time in worlds that were different from the place we lived. Better than the place we lived. Places where we could be whatever we wanted to be, and nobody could tell us 'no' or 'you can’t.'
“We used to talk all the time about how we’d go away, the things that we’d do, the places we’d see. I guess… I guess Miranda stopped believing that I’d ever actually do it.”
“Then she didn’t actually know you that well,” Pyrrha said.
Jaune laughed self-deprecatingly. “You didn’t know what I was like back then.”
“I know what you’ve done,” Pyrrha told him. “Someone… the kind of person who could do those things didn’t come out of nowhere when you arrived at Beacon. He was always there, waiting for the chance to shine. That’s why I…” She hesitated for a moment. “You didn’t answer her, when she said that you were both living your dreams.”
Jaune took the opportunity to avoid answering for a little bit by eating some of his pie and ice cream. Pyrrha watched him, as though she were taking in his every chew. “My dreams… they didn’t include some of the things that have happened lately.”
"I'm sorry for that," Pyrrha said, reaching out to place her hand upon his arm.
"It's fine," Jaune said.
"Jaune," Pyrrha replied reproachfully, a touch of the mildest offence entering her green eyes at the thought that he thought she would believe that.
Jaune sighed. "I mean, obviously, it's not fine, but… I suppose I just… you know that I didn't have the most… I was kind of naïve, and you knew that already. I didn't get what being a huntsman would really involve, what it would be like. But it's just kept hitting me, one thing after another, like… this isn't like a comic book, is it?"
"No," Pyrrha murmured, her voice soft and gentle and filled with regret. "I'm afraid not." She hesitated for a moment, glancing down at her ice cream where it was starting to melt.
"You should probably eat that," Jaune suggested. "Unless you want to wet your pie with it."
Pyrrha let out the very mildest of chuckles as she dug her spoon into the pie and placed both pie and ice cream into her mouth. "Mmm!" she exclaimed. "It's very good."
"It is, isn't it?" Jaune said. "We were lucky to find this place."
"Absolutely," Pyrrha agreed. Her voice became more solemn again. "Jaune… is this… this is still what you want, isn't it? To be at Beacon, to train to be a huntsman, to be with us. That is what you want?"
Jaune ate a little more of his ice cream and drank some of his hot chocolate. It was still very hot; it scorched his tongue. He ate some ice cream. He wasn't delaying, exactly, he was just… taking his time. "I'm not going to leave," he said quietly. "I'm not going to leave you."
Pyrrha's brow crinkled a little beneath her gleaming circlet, but she said nothing, letting him finish.
"Professor Goodwitch asked me if I wanted to go," he admitted. "She said that not everyone… that some people find they're not cut out for this and that there's no shame in that. And there'd be no shame if I decided that this wasn't for me."
Pyrrha stared into Jaune's eyes, and yet still, she held her peace, letting him say everything that he had to say.
"But I… I just keep thinking of that wall at Benni Havens', you know?" Jaune said. "How… how many of the faces up on that wall aren't around anymore? And the thought of that happening to you or Ruby or even Sunset, I just… I know that I'm not as good in a fight as either of you three, and I know it's probably insanely arrogant of me to talk like I could protect you – protect any of you – but if anything happened to you, and I wasn't there, I just… it would eat me up inside until there was nothing left, I just know it."
"And that's why you're staying?" Pyrrha demanded, her voice laced with an undercurrent of disapproval. "Out of obligation to me, to us?"
"You don't think it's enough," Jaune murmured.
"It's not for me to say whether your reasons are enough or not; so long as they're enough for you, then that's all that matters," Pyrrha said, "but I don't want to be the reason why… you say that if something happened to me, but how do you think I would feel if something happened to you, and the only reason you were in danger was because you felt bound to me, and I had pulled you into peril?"
"I… I guess I hadn't really thought about that," Jaune replied. "When you put it like that… it does seem a little selfish of me."
"No, it doesn't, especially because it wasn't meant to be," Pyrrha corrected him. "In some ways, it's the most selfless thing in the world, but… I want you to fight with us because you want to fight, not because you feel like it's what you ought to do. And I'm sure that Ruby and… I'm sure that Ruby would say the same. No, that's very unfair to Sunset; she'd say the same too, I'm sure."
"But aren't you here because you feel like you ought to be?" Jaune asked. "As the heir to the House of Nikos, the pride of Mistral? Aren't you here because it's what you think you should do?"
Pyrrha stared at him for a moment. "Touché, Mister Arc," she conceded, a little playfulness in her voice. "But not the whole story. It is true that I am born to this, obligated to it by my birth as much as by my skill, but… but that is a lie, and a rather proud lie upon my part at that. The monarchy fell generations ago, the age of heroes vanished long before that, the Mistralian values of which I spoke to you that night in the palace are honoured as much in the breach as in the observance, maybe more so. No one would care if I devoted my whole life entirely to vainglorious tournament fighting; no one would care if I did nothing at all but attend high society functions and live off the inherited wealth of my family and the incomes of our land. In fact, some people would probably prefer it if I did either of those things, particularly the latter; it would lower my public profile quite considerably. The Mistral that would demand my service in exchange for all the privileges of my birth has not existed since the Great War, if it existed then, and though I would see the glory of Mistral renewed… when I speak of these things as the motivations for choosing, it is because I choose to give them claim on me, I choose to live by such ancient ways in this. I choose to offer up my life in the cause of humanity just as I choose to give my heart to you. Were I not bound by tradition only when I wish to be, I would obey my mother as a god and have promised my hand to Turnus Rutulus by now.
"But I am not. I am with you, and I am here because… because I choose to be. Because I choose to do something that matters. Because I choose to do something that will make a difference to this whole world of Remnant." She smiled and laughed self-deprecatingly. "Now you see why I prefer to speak of obligation than to seem quite so big-headed."
Jaune grinned. "I can see how it might seem to people who didn't know you so well," he admitted, "but I also know that you only mean it for the good of Remnant and everyone who lives in it. And I get what you're saying, that you've chosen this because it's what you want: for you and no one else."
"Precisely," Pyrrha said. "So… what is that you want, Jaune?"
"I want you," he said.
"And that's delightful to hear," Pyrrha replied, her cheeks reddening just a little, "but you know what I meant."
Jaune didn't reply. He didn't have an easy answer to give to Pyrrha. What did he want? Not to be a hero, not anymore. That dream seemed childish now, naïve, the dream of someone who hadn't understood what the world outside of Alba Longa – and the life of a huntsman – was really like. But at the same time… wasn't that also Sunset's dream, who was or seemed so much worldlier than he was; what was the difference between her dream and his, except that she couched it in language that was a little more self-absorbed? For that matter, what about Ruby, what was the difference there except that she went the other way and talked about it in a way that made it seem so much more selfless? Ruby talked about saving people, but that was what he had wanted too. So maybe it was okay to want that, so long as he understood what it really meant and entailed and what it might ask of him.
"Do you remember Professor Goodwitch's speech on the flight over?" he asked.
"Yes," Pyrrha replied. "Although… I wasn't sure if… Ruby said that-"
"I didn't start having issues until after she started talking," Jaune informed her. "I heard… well, I heard the bit about an era of peace. Is it me, or is that really weird to think of now? Is it that the world suddenly got more dangerous, or is it that the era of peace was never that peaceful to begin with?"
"The peace was always upheld by huntsmen and huntresses," Pyrrha murmured, "but I think the days have grown a little darker all the same."
Jaune nodded. That sounded about right. "I want to help," he said. "Even if I can't do as much as I once thought I could, I want to do whatever I can. Is that enough?"
Pyrrha nodded, smiling. "I think that's plenty," she said.
They lapsed into a comfortable, companionable silence while they ate, both paying as much attention to the delicious food in front of them as to each other, if only to finish off the ice cream before it all melted into just liquid on the plate. But as they were finishing eating, with some of their hot chocolate left, Pyrrha suddenly asked him, "Jaune, do you think you could teach me how to cook?"
Jaune blinked in surprise. "'To cook'? Why?"
"I'd like to learn."
"Sure, but why?"
"Because I think I should be able to do these things for myself if I want to," Pyrrha explained. "And because…" she hesitated, tracing a circle on the table with one finger. "And because I'd like to learn, from you. That is, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," Jaune declared. "I was just surprised, that's all, but sure." He grinned. "It'll be nice to be able to teach you something for a change."
Pyrrha covered her mouth with one hand while she laughed.
"So," Jaune continued. "What do you want to learn?"
"I'm not sure; where do you think I should start?"
They discussed the issue as they finished off their hot chocolate and were still talking about it as they got up to leave, but as they headed towards the door, they were interrupted by Miranda calling out, "Pyrrha, can I talk to you for a second?"



"Pyrrha, can I talk to you for a second?"
Pyrrha stopped. Jaune was almost at the door, one hand reaching for the wooden bar attached to the cold metal handle, and he stopped too, half turning back towards the… person he had known from his hometown.
Pyrrha wasn't yet comfortable referring to her, even in her own head, as Jaune's friend. She still hadn't made up her mind to like Miranda Wells; Jaune might dismiss what she had been about to say, and whatever else she had said to him in the past, but Pyrrha found she would not be quite ready to be so generous. It was no wonder that Jaune's confidence was shot to pieces if that was the kind of attitude that he'd had to put up with from everyone around him growing up. No wonder he found it so hard to believe in himself and his potential. It was a miracle that he had made it to Beacon at all, let alone managed to become such a fine young man. And he was a fine young man, worthy to become a huntsman, with so much to give to Remnant, and if Miranda Wells – or anyone else for that matter – couldn't see it, then she was a fool.
Nevertheless, in spite of however she might feel about Miss Wells, it wouldn't do for her to make a scene when Jaune had not; she didn't want to embarrass Jaune or for any stories to get back home that he was associating with the wrong kind of people, and so, Pyrrha walked briskly, if a little stiffly, across the café to where Miranda stood behind the counter, not far from the stairs.
Miranda looked Pyrrha in the eyes for a moment before she said, "You don't like me very much, do you?"
"I don't know you," Pyrrha replied, which had the virtue of being honest.
Miranda gave her a knowing smile. "But you do care about Jaune, don't you?"
"Very much so, yes," Pyrrha informed her.
"Good," Miranda said. "He needs… he deserves someone who cares about him." She paused. "I was a little worried that you didn't," she admitted. "I thought that this might be some kind of a prank, you know? You would pretend to like him, pretend to go out with him, and then… it all turns out to be a trick, and your friends… beat him up or laugh at him or something."
Pyrrha's tone chilled noticeably. "I don't know any girl who would be so cruel," she said. "Certainly I would not, and certainly not to Jaune."
"I know," Miranda said. "As I said, I worried about it, because who knows what you foreign girls might do-"
"How did you know I wasn't from Vale?" Pyrrha asked.
"Oh, foreigners can be from Vale too," Miranda explained. "Anyone from outside of home is foreign. So my Pa said, anyway. But the point is, I was worried at first because you're, well, because-"
"Because you don't think that someone like me would want to go out with Jaune?" Pyrrha asked, her voice becoming colder by the moment. "You're mistaken."
Miranda managed to smile, if only somewhat. "The fact that you clearly want to do me an injury right now is how I knew that you weren't faking it; you wouldn't get so upset if you didn't care about him."
"I do care, a great deal," Pyrrha said, verging on snapping. "What is it to you, in any case?"
"Listen, I'm really sorry about before," Miranda said. "A Literature student should understand the importance of words, and I chose mine badly. It's just… I care about Jaune too, even if it seemed like I didn't. I just… is he okay, up there at that school? My classmates say it's hardcore up there."
"We are training to become the defenders of humanity against the demons and the dark," Pyrrha declared. "Our training is as rigorous as that heavy duty demands."
Miranda frowned. "I didn't think he'd make it," she confessed. "And I got tired of hearing him talk about dreams that would never come true."
"You underestimated him," Pyrrha informed her. "He has more courage than you knew."
"His courage wasn't the issue," Miranda replied. "It was more… he was always a sweet kid, kind and friendly… even though people were tough on him or mean to him, he never lost that. I suppose I thought that a huntsman would have to be a little less sweet and a little more… macho."
Pyrrha shook her head. "Personally, I think that a huntsman can do much worse than to be kind and to be driven by kindness to help and protect others."
Miranda's smile became very knowing. "You really like him, don't you?"
Pyrrha hesitated for a moment. "I love him," she whispered.
Miranda's eyebrows rose. "Already?"
"You don't believe that our whole lives can change in the blink of an eye?"
"In books, sure, but not in real life," Miranda said. "How is he doing?"
Pyrrha blinked. "He… our last mission was a little wearing on him."
"Are you going to help him through it?"
"If I can," Pyrrha said. "If he'll let me."
Miranda nodded. "And you believe he can do it?"
"I do," Pyrrha said. "Without a doubt."
"You might be the first person who does," Miranda muttered. "He's lucky to have you."
"I'm lucky to have him."
"Yeah," Miranda replied. "Yeah, you are." She nodded affably. "I suppose he told you that our folks…"
"Yes," Pyrrha said softly. "Yes, he mentioned it, in passing. Were you… are you-?"
"Am I jealous? No," Miranda said quickly. "Do you have to worry about me? Also no. When you spend as much time reading books as I have, you find that real men… are a little disappointing by comparison."
"Might I suggest that the problem is that you haven't met the right kind of men?" said Pyrrha.
"Maybe," Miranda conceded. "At the time… I thought Jaune was all talk. I thought that he'd end up spending his whole life back home like everyone wanted him to, and on top of all that, I didn't even think he'd be very good at it, so he'd be a doubly terrible choice. But having moved out to the big city, I've come to realise that he…" She trailed off, saying instead, "Take care of him, okay?"
Pyrrha glanced at Jaune, waiting patiently for her to finish, before she returned her attention to Miranda. "We take care of each other."